10 Break-Out Sessions
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Learn about the key milestones of the St. Gallen Symposium through the years.
In 1969 rector Francesco Kneschaurek asked representatives of the foreign students to arrange something positive to improve the image of the students at the HSG, demonstrating that they were quite unlike those of the 68er. This was in order to augment the winning changes of a citizen referendum for an additional building on the campus. Wolfgang Schürer (D) suggested to arrange an international conference of European business models with top managers to demonstrate readiness for dialogue. Together with Clemens Brenninkmeijer (NL), Franz Kriegler (A), Urs Schneider (CH) and Terje I. Wølner-Hanssen (N) they founded the International Students’ Committee to organise the first symposium in 1970.
The widely recognised Club of Rome study, which analysed the effect of exponential growth on a finite planet, is presented by Dr Aurelio Peccei at the third Symposium in 1972.
Presenting the internationally acclaimed Freedom Prize in 1979 for the first time at the Symposium in St. Gallen highlights the close ties between Max Schmidheiny and the ISC.
In 1989 the Essay Competition for the St. Gallen Wings of Excellence Award is founded by the ISC. Today it counts as one of the largest and most renowned student essay competitions worldwide.
For its 30th anniversary the International Students’ Committee gets more prominent in the public appearence of the Symposium as it is now called “ISC—Symposium”
In 2002 the ISC is comissioned by the Swiss Federal Council to organise the International Conference on Federalism. The conference is attended by 8 heads of state, 16 ministers and 3 federal councillors.
In 2003 Kofi Annan as Secretary-General of the United Nations received the Max Schmidheiny Foundation Freedom Prize. In 2006 he is able to receive this renowned award in person at the University of St.Gallen.
From 2008 to 2010 the University of St.Gallen — annual venue of the symposium — is under construction. Therefore, the symposium moves to a tent city behind the university library.
In 2010 the ISC organises an international conference on democracy and decentralisation under the patronage of the Swiss Chairmanship of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe.
In 2012 the St. Gallen Symposium opens its first office outside of Switzerland. The office in Singapore acts as a home base for all ISC Team members responsible for Asian markets.
At the closing ceremony of the 49th St. Gallen Symposium the ISC Team presented the new brand appearence. The St. Gallen Symposium kicks off the next fifty years with a brand new corporate identity.
Due to the corona pandemic, the Symposium reinvented itself.